Hal Richards, winds, reeds
& arrangements.
Henry Hung, trumpet.
Rumi Abe, piano.
Ron Belcher, bass.
Akira Tana, drums.

$25 cover charge, cash please!
$1.50 surcharge on credit/debit.
Please pay at the door, and byob.
For a reservation, call the shop at 415-586-3733.

Hal Richards is a musician of many horns. When he first strolled into Bird & Beckett in the early aughts for a gig with our Friday happy hour band, the one that started all this jazz for us back in 2002, he made it a point of pride that he carried in all his horns — numbering seven, if we remember correctly — in a single entrance. These days, he still makes it a single entrance for the most part, but he picks and chooses which horns and how many of them to lug. Sometimes as few as five or six!

Still, it’s not the number of  horns he plays, but his sterling tone on each and the swinging alacrity with which he tosses off brilliant solos and stellar ensemble passages every time he puts one of them to his lips.

Hal will helm the kind of hip and talented ensemble he’s always been associated with, whether it’s a 17 piece band or a trio. In this case, he’s got the impeccably swinging Rumi Abe, recently arrived on the scene from Japan, at the piano, and long-established world class musicians Ron Belcher on bass and Akira Tana, on drums, making for a effortlessly lovely rhythm section. And sharing the quintet’s front line, the ever youthful — in fact, still young — Henry Hung on trumpet, always casually precise, spontaneously inventive and wonderfully lyrical.

A great musical experience is assured, well rooted in West Coast traditions springing from a century’s grandeur of America’s true classical music, the African American art form casually referred to as jazz and adored the world over!